The living room was dark and quiet, with only the muted glow
of the television casting any light at all. The DVD logo bounced around the screen lazily, and Sarah
rolled her eyes at herself when she realized she was stuck.

She was sitting on the couch, the TV in front of her,
against the wall the room shared with the garage. A thin sliver of moonlight fell across the room, sneaking
past the curtains covering the sliding glass door on her right, which led out
to a small side-yard patio. Behind
her was a long counter and an open space that divided the kitchen from the
living room. On the left was a
staircase, and the fact that she’d have to try to carry Julie up to the second
floor if she wanted to go to bed was the reason she couldn’t move.

Julie tended to be a heavy sleeper.

Sarah regarded the sleeping figure with a fond smile, her
thoughts drifting like the starfield screensaver on her laptop. Not that her laptop was on her
lap. No, Julie had claimed one of
legs as a pillow, and so her laptop was precariously perched on the arm of the
couch, and she had to twist awkwardly at the waist to get any work done without
disturbing her sleeping girlfriend.

How Julie could watch a movie sideways, Sarah had no
idea. But Julie had always done
that, even before they’d gotten together.

Sarah chuckled soundlessly to herself. Like “before” was such a long time
ago. They’d only been more-than-roommates
for six months, though Julie insisted they’d really been romantically involved
for quite a bit longer than that. She had been informed, by an earnest Julie, that they’d gone on quite a
few dates over the years, and Sarah just hadn’t figured it out.

Julie was so full of shit sometimes, but Sarah had grown to
love that about her.

***

“No, really … my Dad was in the Navy. That’s what they do,” Julie was saying as
Sarah walked in the front door.

Sarah dropped her purse on the little table next to the door
and kicked off her heels, maneuvering them into a neat pile while mourning the
days when she’d also immediately stripped off the panty hose she wore with her
skirt-suit. Sometimes it sucked
having a grown-up job.

And sometimes it sucked having a roommate, she considered,
half-listening to the variations of “no way!” and “yes-way!” coming from the
living room while she padded down the narrow hallway between the stairway and
the wall of the garage towards the argument.

Of course, the roommate thing had been all her idea and was
all her fault, but she hadn’t really counted on Mike sticking his nose into her
business. After her girlfriend
Terri had broken up with her – something about her being a boring workaholic who
wouldn’t know a good time if it jumped up and bit her in the ass – she’d had to
redo her entire personal budget, and had found that the house she had bought
with the expectation that half of the mortgage and utilities would be paid by Terri
was still affordable, but money was a bit tighter than she was comfortable
with. But Terri had walked away
from her and the house, saying she wanted nothing to do with either one.

The trouble with Terri had always been that Terri hated the
fact that Sarah had planned out her life, at least financially, when she was
sixteen, and she’d been doing a great job of sticking to the plan since
then. They’d kept their finances
separate, and she’d tried hard to let Terri do whatever Terri wanted with her
own money, but Terri was constantly urging her to spend a little here, and a
little more there.

Maybe she really was a cheap bastard, like Terri had said,
but really, the problem was that Sarah just hadn’t loved Terri enough to alter
her course, or to compromise when it came to spending her hard-earned money on
frivolous things.

And then she’d made the mistake of mentioning that money was
going to be a little tight and that she probably needed a roommate to her
younger brother Mike, who had lit up and mentioned that one of his fraternity
brothers, Danny, had just graduated and needed a place to live.

Sarah eased past the couple sitting on the couch, the
exchange of greetings and waves temporarily disrupting the heated discussion about
… something, and went to the kitchen, placing the mail on the counter and
beginning to sort it.

Catalog, catalog, bill … coupons.

Sarah set the booklet of coupons aside to look over them
later and continued sorting.

It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Danny. He did his partying elsewhere, and if
he stumbled home late at night, he did so in a quiet and courteous manner that
left her none the wiser. He was
good-looking in a corn-fed All-American kind of way - and he knew it, too – but
his flirting had stopped when she’d told him she was gay, and had been replaced
by a kind of Guy Banter Light: it was a sort of “you’re one of us, but I know
you’re a girl, so I’m toning it down” kind of interaction that was familiar to
her after her time in the Army.

She did sometimes wonder if all lesbians got that with guys,
or if it was just her.

No, Danny wasn’t really a problem. He was okay, if a little gullible sometimes, and they got
along well enough.

It was the never-ending parade of temporary girlfriends that
had been in and out of her house for the past eight months that was starting to
wear thin. She’d gotten to the
point where she’d stopped making note of their names, because she never saw any
of them more than five times.

He’d even broken up with a few of them while they were at
the house, and Sarah had walked into a tense, tearful discussion once or
twice. Though, those weren’t as
bad as the screaming hissy fit she had interrupted after a long, hard day at
work.

“Seriously?” Danny asked incredulously. “No … no way,” he said after a moment,
shaking his head.

Sarah blinked, and continued sorting her mail, sparing a
glance for the couple arguing on the couch.

Junk mail.

What was the newest girlfriend’s name? Jenny? Janie?

Sarah peeked at them out of the corner of her eye. The back of the couch was several feet
away from the kitchen counter, and all she could see were the arguing twosome’s
head and shoulders. Though, in the
case of the girlfriend with the ‘J’ name, she could only see her head and shoulders
because she was kneeling on the cushions, facing Danny with her elbow propped
up on the back of the couch and her head resting against her hand.

She was kind of cute, if you went for small blondes with
enough perky energy to fuel a basket full of kittens and puppies. Sarah, herself, was about 5’8” with
short dark hair and big dark eyes, and the ‘J’ name girlfriend only came up to
around Sarah’s chin, the same as the rest of the girlfriends.

Danny definitely had a type. That’s probably why it was so hard to keep track of their
names.

Julie.

This one was named Julie, Sarah remembered.

“I’m really not kidding,” Julie said, and Sarah glanced up
to see Julie’s eyebrows raising and her eyes widening with a look of such
perfect sincerity that Sarah was completely sure she had to be lying through
her teeth.

No one went to the trouble of looking that innocent when
they weren’t up to something.

“Sarah,” Danny said, calling Sarah’s attention to the
discussion at hand. “Does the Post
Office really take all the letters that kids send to Santa and give them to the
Navy so they can go dump them on the northern ice caps – the north pole?” he
asked.

“Oh, yeah … totally,” Sarah said. “Everyone knows that,” she said dismissively, scooping up
the bills that were hers and looking up briefly into a pair of twinkling,
laughing eyes before she made her way to her home office tucked behind the
stairs.

“I totally didn’t know that,” Danny said, with the look of a
man who had just been informed that the world was, indeed, round. “What about the polar bears?” Danny she
heard Danny ask.

“Well, the polar bears like them because–“ Julie was saying
as Sarah closed her office door and shook her head, chuckling a little.

At least this one had a sense of humor, Sarah considered, sitting
down at her desk and powering up her computer. Maybe she’d last a little longer.

***

That was really the first time that Sarah and Julie had
interacted, beyond a “Hello, my name is –“ level, and it still made Sarah
laugh. At the time, Sarah had focused
on just how gullible Danny was, but since then, it had become one of her
favorite memories of Julie.

Later, when they’d become friends, Julie had mentioned that
it was one of her favorite memories of Sarah, too. Julie had said that finding out that the quiet, serious,
lovely lesbian woman could run with a joke had been a delightful discovery for
her. Sarah blushed and smiled a
little, just remembering that.

That was the thing with Julie, though. She had always found happiness in the
little things, like a shared joke, or finding out new things about people she
knew, and sharing something of herself in return.

Heck, Sarah had seen Julie get excited about pressing the
call button for an elevator, only to have the door immediately open because the
elevator was already there.

While an older and more mature Sarah, looking back, felt a
little bad about pulling the poor Danny’s leg, she knew that that had been the
moment when she’d realized that Julie was someone she could be friends with.

Until that point, she had just been Danny’s little
girlfriend.

***

“Oh, hi!” Julie said, looking up from the textbook sitting
open on Sarah’s coffee table as Sarah took the mail to the kitchen, sorting it
as it went.

“Hi,” Sarah said, looking up and giving Julie a questioning
look when she noticed the distinct lack of Danny.

“Danny’s running some errands, and then we’re going to a
party, so you’ll have the place all to yourself tonight,” Julie explained.

“Ah,” Sarah said, nodding a little then continued her
sorting.

“Do you do that every day?” Julie asked, facing the back of
the couch and resting her chin on it.

“Mail doesn’t bring itself in,” Sarah said absently.

“But you never skip a day?” Julie pressed.

“No,” Sarah said, looking up. “Why?”

“And you always drop your purse on the table and kick off
your heels as soon as you get in the door?” Julie asked, ignoring Sarah’s
question.

“You’re not a psych major, are you?” Sarah asked, looking at
Julie with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

“Nope,” Julie said cheerfully, grinning at Sarah and turning
around fully, so she was leaning over the back of the couch. “I just like getting to know people
better, and the only thing I know about you is that you’re Danny’s good-looking
gay roommate.”

Sarah blinked. She wasn’t even remotely in the closet, but she wasn’t used to anyone
referring to her sexuality with such casual unconcern.

“Umm … thanks?” Sarah said uncertainly, belatedly realizing
that there had been a compliment on her appearance in there.

“So what do you do for a living?” Julie asked.

“I’m an accountant,” Sarah said. “Do you always ask so many questions?”

“Yes,” Julie said, grinning again. “Besides, I needed the distraction. If I study any more, my brain is going
to melt and dribble out of my ears. Do you like being an accountant? Does anyone like being an accountant?”

“Actually, yes, I do,” Sarah said, smiling a little. “Pre-law?”

Julie beamed. “Yes! How’d you know?”

“I think it was the feeling of being under
cross-examination,” Sarah said dryly, turning her back to the counter to face
Julie directly, her hands linked behind her back.

“Which branch of the military were you in?” Julie asked,
eyeing Sarah with a speculative look.

“How’d you know?” Sarah asked, echoing Julie’s earlier
question.

“You’re standing at parade rest,” Julie pointed out,
laughing out loud when Sarah leaned back against the counter and crossed her
arms over her chest.

“Habit,” Sarah said with a shrug and a wry look. “And I was in the Army. Your father was in the Navy?” she
asked, seeming to remember Julie mentioning that sometime. That’s right; it was when Julie told Danny
about Santa’s mail being delivered to the North Pole. “Did you grow up on bases?”

“Yes, I did,” Julie said. “You? Your
parents in the Army?”

“No, actually,” Sarah said, shaking her head and chuckling a
little. “They’re about as far from
the Army as it’s possible to be. I
should’ve guessed you were a military brat, though,” Sarah said.

“Why’s that?” Julie asked curiously, propping her elbow up
on the back of the couch and propping her chin up on her hand.

“Because you’re awfully friendly,” Sarah said in a gently
teasing tone. Julie had the grace
to look abashed at the remark. “Seriously, though, that’s something I always noticed on-base. All the kids were awesome about
including the new kids.”

“Oh, yeah,” Julie said, nodding. “We all knew what it was like to be the new kid. Maybe that is why I’m really friendly,” she said, her voice taking on a
thoughtful, considering tone. “Isn’t that funny?”

“Huh?” Sarah asked, her eyebrows drawing together.

“Well, it’s like the whole ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate,”
Julie said, shrugging. “You have
just hit on a strong argument in favor of my friendliness being a product of my
upbringing. So where do you stand
on the issue?”

“It’s an issue?” Sarah asked with a little smile. “And here I thought it was a bullshit
philosophical discussion that couldn’t be definitely decided either way because
we don’t know enough yet.”

“Now that’s an interesting take on it,” Julie said, her tone
making it clear that she hadn’t thought of it that way before. “Because is it even a relevant
question? Unless we’re planning on
figuring out how to make people think and act a certain way, does it really
matter how people turn out the way that they do?”

“Well, if you’re talking about violent criminals or
something …” Sarah said slowly.

“Yeah, but who gets to decide what thoughts and acts are
unacceptable?” Julie asked.

“Okay,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “The possible applications of figuring
out ‘nature versus nurture’ is a totally pointless discussion, because we’re
nowhere near figuring it out. And
it will give me a headache.”

“So you don’t even have an opinion on the ‘nature versus
nurture’ thing?” Julie asked, sounding skeptical.

“What’s yours?” Sarah asked.

“You don’t have one?” Julie pressed.

“No, I don’t,” Sara said. “But if yours is any good, I promise to repeat it verbatim
the next time someone asks.”

“You had really high ASVAB scores, didn’t you?” Julie asked.

“Ummm … I did, actually,” Sarah said with a sheepish
shrug. “That was kind of a
non-sequitur.”

“So why didn’t you go straight to college?” Julie
asked. “And it’s not a
non-sequitur when you used the word ‘verbatim’ in a sentence with a straight
face.”

“Hey, Jules?” Danny called from the front door. “You ready to go?”

“We will continue this later,” Julie said, wagging a finger
at Sarah, as if Danny’s sudden appearance was something Sarah had magically
arranged in order to get out of answering any more questions. “Don’t think I’ll forget,” Julie said,
gathering up her things and joining Danny in the hallway.

Sarah waited until she heard the front door, and then
chuckled. Of all of Danny’s
girlfriends, Julie was now officially her favorite.

***

Less than four months later, Danny had announced he was
moving out, and he had all of his things packed up and mostly out within three
days. He hadn’t mentioned why he
was moving, or where he was moving, just that he was moving. Julie hadn’t been around for awhile,
and Sarah had assumed they’d broken up.

Sarah looked down at Julie and now admitted to herself that
she’d been interested in getting to know Julie better, even if she hadn’t been
thinking of it in romantic terms at the time. She had been far too raw and unsure of herself after her bad
breakup with Terri to even consider dating anyone. Besides, at the time she’d thought Julie was completely
straight.

Sarah winced as she remembered exactly how she’d found out
that wasn’t the case.

Julie and Danny had not broken up. Danny was, apparently, saving the big breakup scene for
Valentine’s Day, at Sarah’s house, where he had one last box to grab.

***

“You’re breaking up with me on Valentine’s Day?” Sarah heard
through the doorway of her bedroom. She winced.

That was the trouble with having a roommate, Sarah decided
with a noiseless sigh. All of Danny’s
drama was seeping into her life. At least Julie wasn’t screechy like the last girlfriend. Then again, it was Valentine’s Day, and
Terri had told her she had the emotional maturity of a pile of rocks during
their bad breakup, but even Sarah knew that breaking up with someone on
Valentine’s Day was just … bad. So, if anyone deserved to get screechy, it was probably Julie.

Carefully and quietly, Sarah crept to her door and eased it
shut, blocking out the worst of the recriminations being tossed around.

She went back to her bed and tried to continue her reading,
but a series of loud thumps had her bolting upright and darting for the door
before she paused to consider whether or not she really wanted to go out there.

Chances were very good that no one was hurt, or bleeding, or
dead. Danny was a dog, but he
didn’t have a violent bone in his body, and Julie was tiny.

Several more thumps and a few unintelligible phrases spoken
at top volume met her ears, and Sarah opened the door.

Julie was tiny, but Julie was pissed.

She could hear them both still yelling, and now that her
door was open, she could hear them both more clearly than she wanted to.

“It was an accident!” Danny said.

“An accident?” Julie asked, her voice deceptively low now,
but carrying clearly up the stairs. “An accident?” she repeated, her voice getting a little louder. “So you were … what? Getting her a drink, and when you
spilled it, your dick was in her?”

Sarah’s eyes widened and she started to ease the door shut
again.

“Julie, I –“ Danny started to say, only to stop short.

“I can’t believe you knocked up my ex-girlfriend, then told
me about it on Valentine’s Day, you bastard!” Julie yelled.

Sarah froze, and then blinked. Did Julie just say … ?

“I was just trying to-“ Danny said, only to be cut off
again.

“I know what you were trying to do,” Julie said, her voice
low and quiet, and shaking with anger. “And I already told you, that just because I’m bisexual does not mean I
am interested in trying out a threesome.”

“Well, we had to try something,” Danny retorted. “We weren’t getting anywhere in the
sack, so-“

The sound of the slap resounded through the house, leaving
silence in its wake and Sarah’s eyebrows shot upward.

“I guess that says it all,” Danny said into the quiet. “I’ll be going.”

“No it’s not,” Danny said softly. “I’m moving in with Melanie. This is my last box.”

Sarah heard Danny pick up his stuff and go, the front door
making a loud enough noise to shake Sarah out of the horrified, unmoving haze
she’d found herself in. She was
just about to shut the door when she heard Julie start to sob.

***

That had probably been one of the most awkward moments of
her life, but from where she was sitting right now, getting a crick in her
neck, pinned to her couch by a peacefully slumbering Julie, Sarah could
honestly say she’d live through it all again to end up where she was. And when she considered the idea that
Dan, as Danny was now called, was still happily married to Melanie, and they
had three kids, things had really turned out for the best all around.

Fatherhood, apparently, had matured Dan a lot.

Sarah and Julie had ended up sitting on the couch all night,
and after Julie had stopped crying, they’d talked. She couldn’t really remember everything they’d talked about,
except that the conversation had veered wildly from the silly to the profound.

Or, at least she had thought they were being profound at the
time. It was a little hard to tell
at 3 in the morning.

Hung over and crashed out on the couch, Julie had thanked
Sarah, and apologized for crying all over her, and then thanked Sarah some
more, and then she was gone, leaving Sarah to a blessedly quiet house that felt
achingly empty.

She’d never understood why, but when she’d answered her door
a few weeks later and found Julie on her doorstep, she hadn’t been surprised, like
Julie was supposed to be there.

***

“Two-hundred, plus utilities?” Julie asked on a squeak,
brandishing the newspaper and entering the house the moment Sarah opened the
door. “Are you insane?”

“That’s what Danny paid, yeah,” Sarah said defensively as
Julie marched passed her and into the living room.

“Give me that,” Sarah said, snatching the newspaper from
Julie’s hand. “What’s the
problem? And why are you
here? Did you forget something?”

“Danny really paid two-hundred and utilities,” Julie said
flatly.

“Yeah,” Sarah said.

“And that wasn’t just a special deal because he’s your
brother’s friend? That ad isn’t a
typo?” Julie asked cautiously.

“No. Why?” Sara
asked.

“I’ll take it!” Julie said, giving a good impression of
jumping up and down without actually moving. “Can I? Can I
please? I don’t want to live at
Rathole Manor anymore. My
roommates have wild parties every night,” Julie said, pacing as she rattled off
her pitch. “And I like a good time
as much as the next girl, but every night? I’m going to be starting law school in the fall. Law school! I need someplace quiet. And nicer. Without rats!”

“Are you okay?” Sarah asked uncertainly.

“Sorry,” Julie said, flopping down onto the couch. “I’m usually not a raging lunatic,” she
said, taking a deep breath and smiling in a wry, self-deprecating kind of
way. “Hi, I’m Julie, and I’d
really like to rent this room I saw advertised in the newspaper. I don’t smoke, I pay my bills on time,
and I’ll be going to law school in the fall, so I’ll spend a lot of time
reading quietly.”

“You want to move into your ex-boyfriend’s old room?” Sarah
asked. “Isn’t that a little …”

“Weird,” Julie said, letting out a short breath. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I almost didn’t come here,
but … two-hundred plus utilities? Rat free? It’s not like
he’s still living in it, or that you’re such great friends that he’ll be coming
by to visit.” Julie paused. “You aren’t such great friends that
he’ll be coming by to visit, are you?”

“No, actually,” Sarah said with a little smile. Somehow, she doubted that Julie would
spend her time reading quietly, and that if she let Julie rent her spare room,
she’d find out just how loud life could be.

But maybe, just maybe, she’d learn how to live a little.

***

Sarah started to fall asleep, her head lolling to the side,
and her hand resting on Julie’s shoulder. She felt good, and peaceful, and happy, and she smiled as she started to
dream.

Julie shifted and blinked some time later, the blue glow of
the television revealing that she was still downstairs. Not that there was anything wrong with
that, she considered happily, smiling against the jean-clad leg that was serving
as a pillow. She blinked a few
times, and then yawned, the sound of Sarah’s slow, even breathing meeting her
ears after she had finished her movement.

Slowly, Julie turned over, so she could look up at Sarah,
and she grinned.

The big dork was going to have a huge crick in her neck in
the morning, unless Julie woke her up.

Julie bit her lip, her face taking on a mischievous cast as
she considered her options.

Sarah was slumped over to her left, and in that position,
Julie guessed she’d have a massive drool spot all over the shoulder of her
sweatshirt by morning. That had
prime teasing potential. And then
there was the fact that, if Sarah had an ache anywhere, it was Julie’s job to
rub it.

Julie grinned wickedly. She did so love giving Sarah a good rubbing.

Sarah worked too much, and even when she wasn’t working, she
felt this weird need to be doing something productive, and Julie had found that
out early on and had made it her mission to get Sarah to learn to appreciate the
value of giving that busy brain a rest. Not that she was always successful: Sarah genuinely enjoyed her work and
actually had fun being an accountant and playing with her spreadsheets.

Sometimes, Julie thought that, if only Microsoft Excel were
a woman, Sarah would have married it years ago.

A thought popped into Julie’s head, and she covered her
mouth with her hand and tried to hold back a laugh, a tiny squeak escaping and
her body shaking a little. Then
again, if Microsoft Excel were a woman, it would be Sarah, and Julie had every intention
of marrying her, so they had that in common, really.

“Mmm … spreadsheets,” Julie whispered, turning back on her
side and remembering the day Sarah had started her on the road to fiscal
responsibility.

***

“Problems?” Sarah asked, watching Julie punching away at a
calculator with a frustrated look on her face.

“No,” Julie said, making a scrunched up face of displeasure. “Yes. How can I still be broke all the time when my rent and
utilities are cheaper?” Julie asked plaintively.

“Um, is that a serious question, or did you just want to
vent?” Sarah asked uncertainly.

“Would you have a suggestion if it were a serious question?”
Julie asked.

“Yes,” Sarah said.

Julie waited a moment for Sarah to elaborate, but Sarah said
nothing further.

“I’m staying out of it if you’re just venting,” Sarah said,
raising her hands in a placating gesture.

“Well, what?” Julie asked. “What would you suggest?”

“Do you have a budget?” Sarah asked tentatively, looking at
the scattered pieces of paper around Julie and the pencil tucked behind her ear
with a jaundiced eye.

“Umm … sort of,” Julie said sheepishly, gesturing to the
haphazard pile of papers. She
almost laughed out loud at Sarah’s wide-eyed look of incredulity, and bit her
tongue to stop herself from blurting out that not everyone could be an
accounting wizard like her. They
just didn’t know each other well enough for that kind of teasing yet, though
Julie was very interested in getting to know Sarah better. Sarah wasn’t really like anyone she
knew from college. Sure, she knew
quite a few rampant overachievers, but she had never met anyone so driven and
so focused as Sarah.

“That,” Sarah pronounced, her voice dripping with disdain,
“is not a budget.” Sarah took a
deep breath and let it out slowly. “That,” she went on, her voice getting louder, “is the road to financial
ruin.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?” Julie asked,
grinning widely. She hadn’t known
that Sarah had a dramatic streak at all, and had, in fact, secretly wondered if
there was anything in the world that could ruffle Sarah’s feathers.

Apparently, there was, and it was poor money management.

“Okay,” Sarah said. “The great thing about budgets is that they let you make big-picture
decisions about what to spend your money on. Without a budget, you can’t analyze your opportunity costs.”

“I thought an opportunity cost was the amount of money you
didn’t make in an investment if you could have invested in something that did
better,” Julie said, dredging her memory for where she had heard that term
before.

“Well, yeah,” Sarah said. “But it also applies to spending, because every time you buy
something, you can’t buy something else with that money, and you can’t save or
invest that money.” Sarah grew
more animated as she was talking, her voice strong as she gestured with her
hands for emphasize her points. “But,
really, it’s about choices. You
can apply the concept of opportunity cost to just about any choice.”

“How so?” Julie asked, watching in fascination as her quiet,
laid-back roommate actually bounced a little in her seat before continuing.

“Let’s say you got accepted into two law schools,” Sarah
said after a moment. “Whichever
law school you don’t pick is the opportunity cost you incur for your
choice. Or if you can’t decide
whether you want to be a doctor or a lawyer. Once you’ve made your decision, the one that didn’t get
picked is your opportunity cost. For a budget, once you’ve laid out what all of your basic living costs
are, like food and housing, you can distribute the rest to entertainment or
savings.”

“So if I settled down with just one person, my opportunity
cost is really hot sex with everyone else on Earth?” Julie asked with a wicked
grin. “In the appropriate age
group, of course,” she added quickly.

“Right,” Sarah said with a little laugh. “Assuming you otherwise would have had
the opportunity to have really hot sex with everyone else on the planet, then
yes, that would be your opportunity cost for settling down.”

“Hmm …” Julie said, tapping her chin with one finger. “I’m not sure anyone is worth that
price.”

“That’s my point!” Sarah said excitedly. “Not about sex with everyone on Earth,”
added. “I mean, about opportunity
cost. When you sit down, and have
a budget, and decide where you’re putting your dollars, you can really see what
it’s costing you, in terms of all the places your money isn’t going because you’ve made that choice. It’s a totally different way of looking
at your finances than knowing that you’ve got ten dollars in your pocket and
can therefore buy the frappa-mocha-locha-whatever.”

“But I love my frappa-mocha-locha-whatever,” Julie
mock-whined.

“Which is fine,” Sarah said. “You can have your frappa-mocha-locha-whatever, but if you
spent twenty bucks a week on those things, then that’s eighty dollars a month
you can’t do anything with. And if
eighty dollars a month and nine-hundred and sixty dollars a year is what the
frappa-mocha-locha-whatever is worth to you, then go ahead. But a budget lets you make an informed
decision about that.”

“Okay, I’ll try it,” Julie said, throwing up her hands in
defeat.

“Great!” Sarah said, getting up and heading to her office.

Julie scrambled to her feet, quickly gathering her papers. She’d never seen the inside of Sarah’s
home office, and while the idea that an actual accountant was about to help her
with her finances was compelling, she really got up and dashed after Sarah
because she was finally going to see where Sarah spent so much of her time.

It was an astonishingly simple room. There was a plain oak desk with a
computer on top, a filing cabinet, a bookshelf, and a lounge chair with a
reading lamp next to it. Julie was
almost disappointed to find that it didn’t have something deep and dark and
secret lying around. Sarah had,
apparently, decided the opportunity cost of decorating dollars was too high.

Without a word, Sarah turned on her computer and waited for
it to boot up, leaning back in her chair and lacing her fingers together over
her stomach, idly twiddling her thumbs.

Once the computer had completed booting up, Sarah
double-clicked an Excel spreadsheet, and numbers filled the screen, each column
clearly labeled as income or expenses, and the rows labeled with months and
years.

Sarah quickly highlighted columns of numbers and deleted the
values, other columns becoming zero through the magic of the spreadsheet. Then, Sarah removed all the rows that
were before the current date, and Julie noticed there were quite a few of them.

“Umm … did I just see ten years worth of numbers disappear?”
Julie asked incredulously.

“Well, yeah,” Sarah said. “I’m going to use my budget as a template so we can put in
your numbers.”

“How old are you?” Julie asked curiously.

“I’m twenty-seven,” Sarah said absently, saving the file
with a new name so she wouldn’t overwrite her own budget.

“You’ve had a budget since you were a teenager? An actual written-out budget and not
just a general idea of your money?” Julie asked, her voice rising to a squeak. “Man, I feel like a slacker.”

“See! And
that’s what pisses me off!” Sarah blurted out.

Julie’s eyebrows shot up her forehead and she blinked.

“Not you,” Sarah said quickly, turning her computer chair
around. “It’s just … I was really
lucky. We had a teacher at my high
school that went over budgeting and saving and investing with all the students
who had after-school jobs. It was
four Saturdays, and it totally focused on practical, personal finance, and
putting together a real budget based off of our actual paychecks was our
project.”

“And that pisses you off? That sounds great,” Julie said.

“It was,” Sarah said earnestly. “Best class I ever took. But that’s my point. By the time I took the economics class I needed to graduate, I was a
Senior, and I’d already been working for a couple of years, and that class just
touched on personal finance without getting into it in-depth. So, if Mr. Simmons hadn’t given up his
own time for that budgeting class, I probably would have already had a lot of
bad spending habits and no savings to speak of.”

“So that’s how you bought a house so young,” Julie said,
speaking more to herself than to Sarah. She’d wondered about that, knowing that between her low part-time income
and her student loans she had no chance of owning a home until her thirties, if
then.

“The one thing Mr. Simmons said that stuck with me more than
anything else was that there were two ways to put money away into a savings
account: earn more, or spend less. And, the one part of that I had control over was my spending, so …”
Sarah said, trailing off.

“The GI Bill paid for college,” Sarah said. “But more importantly to me, I was able
to live on-base, which meant that even though I wasn’t making very much, I
could save almost all of it.”

“What the hell did you do for fun?” Julie asked, her
eyebrows drawn together.

“I had a library card,” Sarah said dryly.

“Are you shitting me?” Julie asked.

“No,” Sarah said with a shrug. “Let’s see your papers, and we’ll put this all
together. Spreadsheets are really
neat,” Sarah said, smiling at her computer screen fondly.

“Okay,” Julie said, suddenly excited about seeing what the
magical spreadsheet would tell her. And maybe she’d learn a little more about Sarah and what made her tick
in the process.

***

Julie smiled, remembering the joy of learning how to use a
spreadsheet. Not that the
spreadsheet itself had been the source of her joy, though the fact that it did
all the math for her pretty much rocked, but because Sarah clearly loved
numbers, and her enthusiasm had seemed to pour out of her.

It had even been kind of fun, going through her daily
routine and recalling what she spent on what, and figuring out what she could
cut. Really, the frappa-mocha-locha-whatever
was one of the biggest culprits, and Julie had decided to make her own damn
coffee as much as possible.

The whole experience had been something of an eye-opener, but
more of an eye-opener had been Sarah’s revelation that the library card she’d
mentioned using as her sole source of entertainment when she was in the Army was
used to check out non-fiction.

Julie had been as horrified by that as Sarah had been by her
improvisational money management style. And when they’d taken a break and chatted, and Sarah had found out about
all the movies Sarah hadn’t seen – including some childhood classics that had
Julie’s jaw dropping – and all the books she hadn’t read, and all the music she
hadn’t listened to, Julie took it upon herself to repay Sarah’s budgeting
lessons with a crash-course in pop culture.

Opportunity cost was an interesting concept. Fun couldn’t really be quantified. Experiencing things, and living, and
relaxation weren’t things that had a set value. But even so, these things were the opportunity cost of
Sarah’s carefully laid plans, and they were a cost Sarah was more than willing
to pay, because she didn’t see the value in them.

So Julie decided to show her. It wasn’t that she wanted to mess up Sarah’s budget, or her
life plan, or her savings schedule. But how could Sarah make a real choice in terms of opportunity cost when
she didn’t know what she was missing?

And if Julie took a certain devilish pleasure in making Sarah
watch pure dreck, well, that was just a bonus.

***

"This is the stupidest movie I have ever seen and it's only
been on for five minutes," Sarah said. "Why are we watching this?"

"Because this stupid movie is indelibly etched in my
brain. My little sister was crazy
about them when they were big, and I don’t know how many times I’ve watched
it. Nothing will make it go
away. We can suffer
together," Julie said, her eyes riveted to the screen as she retrieved
some popcorn from the bowl sitting on Sarah's lap.

"I've never even heard of these people," Sarah said,
shaking her head. "Is this a
made-up group? Or is this a real
group?"

Julie dropped her popcorn back into the bowl and scrambled for
the remote, hitting pause before turning and looking at Sarah with a dropped
jaw.

"Are you a space alien? You must be a space alien," Julie decided. "There's really no other
explanation."

"Seriously," Sarah said with a little shrug. "Made up or real?"

"How could anyone have possibly made that up?" Julie
asked, pointing at the frozen image on the television.

"Umm ... either way, someone made them up," Sarah said
slowly. "They're either a
real singing group that someone had to conceptualize, or they're a fake singing
group for this movie."

"Oh," Julie said, cocking her head to one side as
though she were considering the idea. "Yeah, that's true. But still!" she said, straightening up and looking at Sarah directly. "How could you have not heard of
the Spice Girls?"

"Because their music is kind of ... inane?" Sarah
hazarded a guess. It's not like
she'd dodged the Spice Girls on purpose.

"It's not like it's supposed to be deep and
meaningful," Julie said. "It's just supposed to be fun, and if you were taking it in that
spirit, you wouldn't even notice it was inane."

"But that wouldn't stop it from being inane," Sarah
pointed out.

"It doesn't have to," Julie said, and then turned her
whole body towards Sarah, sitting sideways on the couch and curling one leg in
front of her. "It's like an
action movie. Do you like action
movies?"

"Well, yeah," Sara said.

"But, really, they're formulaic and tend to have a
paper-thin plot with a bunch of clever quips, explosions, gun fights, and car
chases stacked on top, right? So,
what do you like about them?" Julie asked.

"Exactly!" Julie said, slapping Sarah lightly on the
leg to emphasize her point. "You appreciate action movies for what they are, without trying to
make them into something they're not. You have to do the same thing with the Spice Girls."

"Yes," Julie said with an emphatic nod. "Now you understand. And now we continue your lessons,"
she said, starting the movie again and reaching for the popcorn, wiggling on
the couch with glee as Spice World continued.

***

Julie giggled just thinking about making Sarah watch Spice
World. That one hadn’t been fair,
she inwardly admitted. Nobody saw
Spice World. But Julie had caught
Sarah humming Spice Girls songs a few days later, so she had considered the
exercise a resounding success.

She hadn’t even realized she’d been doing it, either, until
Julie started humming along. Sarah
had pretended to be grumpy about it, and then she’d laughed.

But not as hard as she’d laughed when Julie started law
school.

***

Sarah was lying on the couch, reading a book, when she heard
Julie walk in. Briefly, she
glanced up, and Julie barely managed to keep a straight face when Sarah did a
double-take and then started laughing.

“What?” Julie asked innocently, her eyes wide.

Sarah was laughing too hard to talk, and she overbalanced,
almost falling off the couch. “Whoa!” Sarah said, righting herself, and then laughing some more.

Julie folded her hands demurely in front of her and waited.

After a while, Sarah’s laughter died down into the
occasional chuckle, and she was able to speak.

“Did the peddler man promise it would turn your hair a
beautiful raven black?” Sarah asked with a snicker.

Julie joined in, lifting Sarah’s feet out of her way and
sitting down on the couch.

“Very good,” Julie praised with a smile. The Disney ‘Anne of Green Gables’
miniseries had been one of the many, many things Julie had gotten Sarah to
watch with her.

“So, umm – hi, Julie,” Sarah said. “Is there a reason why your hair is green when you’re
starting law school in the morning?”

“Yes,” Julie said with a cheery smile.

“Care to share?” Sarah prompted.

“I wanted to make sure I got noticed,” Julie said.

Sarah blinked in bemusement. “With green hair?”

“Well, yeah,” Julie said, shrugging. “I’ve kind of been worried about that
all summer.”

“Normal-colored hair was worrying you?” Sarah asked.

“No, no,” Julie said, shaking her head. “It’s like this,” she explained. “I’m going to be going to law school,
where there are just tons of other smart, good students. I’ve been worried I’d get lost in the
crowd. People won’t be able to miss
me with this,” she said, patting her green hair fondly.

“Well, no,” Julie admitted. “That is the drawback. Everyone who doesn’t already know me will think I’m weird-“ she was
saying, only to be cut off.

“I know you, and I think you’re weird,” Sarah said.

“Yes, but you don’t think I’m a green-haired punk-freak,”
Julie said reasonably. “Because
you know me.”

“That’s true,” Sarah said. “I think you’re crazy, and your green hair isn’t a statement
so much as a way of giving fair warning to people who don’t know you yet.”

“I’m being serious,” Julie said, pressing her lips together,
and picking up a throw pillow and whacking Sarah with it.

“Hey!” Sarah said, blocking the pillow hit with your
own. “That’s your free one. You hit me with that again, and it’s
on,” she warned, patting the pillow she was resting her head on.

Julie looked at her pillow, and then at Sarah for a moment,
as if considering whether or not she wanted to go there.

Sarah’s eyes narrowed.

“So,” Julie said, tucking the pillow behind her and bouncing
back against it a few times. “So
I’ll be the weird girl with green hair for awhile, but everyone will notice me
and remember me. And then the only
thing I have to do is be so completely awesome that nobody cares that I have
green hair, and then I can dye it back,” Julie said reasonably.

“That … there is no way that’s going to work, you realize
that, right?” Sarah asked. “Lawyers don’t have green hair.”

“Yes, but I’m a law student, not a lawyer,” Julie pointed
out. “This is really the last
chance I’ll have to do something like this.”

“Is that really why you did it?” Sarah asked with a
smile. “Because once you’ve
graduated and joined the grown-ups, you can never have green hair again?”

Julie turned over, wiggling around until she found just the
right comfortable position, her head still resting on Sarah’s leg, and tried to
go back to sleep. It wasn’t really
working, though. She’d starting
thinking about Sarah, and thinking about Sarah was one of her favorite things,
so her mind kept doing it and wouldn’t slow down enough for her to get to
sleep.

Sarah was really a lot of fun, if someone bothered to dig
her out of her shell first, which was why Julie was constantly inviting Sarah
to go out with her and her friends. Sarah, of course, always demurred, saying she had work to do, or
something.

Then one day, Julie and her friends were planning on going
to a little, quiet pub, which seemed a little more like something that Sarah
would enjoy than the usual clubbing/dancing that Julie invited Sarah to, and
Sarah had actually said yes.

It was a few months later that Sarah admitted that she had
projected the long term costs of going out with Julie and her friends, in terms
of actual cost and loss of potential interest earning, before deciding she
could afford to accept once in awhile.

But that was just Sarah, and the way she thought of things,
though the first time Sarah accepted an invitation and went out with her and
her friends was the catalyst for Sarah finally confiding in Julie exactly why
she thought of things that way.

***

“Wow,” Jason said in an undertone to Julie when Sarah
excused herself to use the restroom. “Your roommate is hot.”

“You’re not her type,” Julie whispered back with a giggle.

“Why the hell not?” Jason said, mildly offended to have been
shot down before he even tried.

“Jason!” Julie admonished, accompanying his name with a
light slap on the arm. “You are
such a dog.”

“Woof, woof,” Jason said softly, before turning and rejoining
the loud conversation that had been going on back and forth between their table
and the one next to them.

The pub was dimply lit, but loud, and filled up, mostly with
graduate students, because of its location so close to the campus. The atmosphere of the place tended to
change throughout the evening, starting off with the low buzz of earnest
collegiate conversations early on, and giving way to the more raucous – and
raunchy – later.

Currently, things were starting to get a little raucous, as
someone with a seemingly endless supply of dollar bills had apparently selected
every 80’s hair band song in the jukebox.

“My God,” Lena said, snagging the currently empty seat next
to Julie. “Is that woman you’re
with a date or that roommate you’re always talking about?”

“She’s my roommate,” Julie said.

“Is she gay? Is
she married?” Lena asked quickly, and Julie remembered that she’d seen Lena at
a local women’s bar a few times. “Would she like to be gay and married?”

“Whoa,” Julie said, holding up a hand. “You haven’t gone on a first date, let
alone a second. Let’s leave the
U-Haul until the proper time,” she laughed.

“Seriously, though,” Lena said, grinning at Julie. “Is she seeing anyone? Do you mind if I ask her out?”

“An accountant, huh?” Julie heard Lena say as she looked
over the room, planning her path to the bathroom. “You can audit my books anytime.”

Julie paused for a moment, wondering briefly if she had just
tossed Sarah into the deep-end of the dating pool: Lena was a central figure in
the campus GLBT organization, and while her bark was worse than her bite, so to
speak, she seemed to could come off as a little aggressive to people who
weren’t used to her. But, really,
Julie believed very strongly that, sex being a basic human need, Sarah really
needed to get laid. The woman
lived like a nun, without the mitigating religious devotion.

Julie rolled her eyes at her younger self. At the time, Sarah was just her nerdy
roommate and fun friend, and the fact that she really was pretty darn
attractive had somehow escaped her notice.

Perhaps it was because she was dating Danny at the time, and
Julie wasn’t the type who had a wandering eye, and right after that she was
dealing with the break-up, which had been fairly traumatic at the time, though
she could laugh at it now.

Sarah was just Sarah, her informal financial advisor and
pop-culture student, who didn’t date, and was saving up more of her money for a
rainy day.

***

“So, I hear you and Lena aren’t dating anymore,” Julie said
casually, dumping her book bag on the coffee table.

“That got around fast,” Sarah said.

“Why not?” Julie asked. Lena was smart, attractive, had good prospects for the
future.

“Opportunity cost,” Sarah said.

“Please do not tell me you stopped dating Lena because of
something like, I don’t know … does she not have a retirement savings plan?”
Julie asked plaintively. “You guys
were really cute together!”

“Look,” Sarah said, closing the book she was reading and
sitting up. “She’s not the one for
me and I’m not the one for her. It’s nothing specific, we just … we don’t really ‘click’, y’know?”

“Well, she’s someone you’re dating! Does every relationship that you’re in
have to have long-term potential?” Julie asked. “You don’t see me dumping people the second I figure out I
can’t see myself growing old with them. Sometimes you date someone just for fun. Did Lena ask for more than that?”

“No,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “And yeah, sometimes a relationship
isn’t serious, and it’s just fun, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but … we
were just at the point where I felt I needed to get serious or get out. And Lena wasn’t the one.”

“I still don’t get it. It’s not that she annoyed you? Or pissed you off? Did she
snore?” Julie asked, trying to grasp exactly why this breakup had occurred, and
silently wondering why it bothered her so much.

“Can’t I just say that it ran its course and leave it at
that?” Sarah asked. “Besides, are
you trying to get rid of me? I
spent a lot of time out of the house while I was dating Lena. Didn’t you miss me?”

“I’m sorry,” Julie said, shaking her head a little and
sitting down next to Sarah. “I’m
being terribly nosy, aren’t I? It’s really none of my business.”

“Did you have to do that? Now I want to tell you,” Sarah practically whined. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep
breath. “The opportunity cost of
continuing to date Lena, who wasn’t the one, was that I wouldn’t be free to see
‘the one’ if I met her. But more
importantly, I kind of felt bad because I knew I wasn’t the one for Lena, and
being with me meant that if she met the right woman she’d have to dump me or
cheat on me to date her. That just
seemed like a bad situation.” Sarah paused for a moment. “And yes, she snores.”

“Yeah, I kind of missed you,” Julie said, bumping Sarah with
her shoulder. “And these little
talks where we break the world down into economic principles. Is there a reason why you do that?”

“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

“You kind of … I don’t know,” Julie said, shrugging a
little. “You just … it seems like,
sometimes, your obsessive budgeting and breaking everything down to opportunity
costs, and … it’s like there’s a deeper reason. Like, sure, you’re a math geek, but sometimes it’s like
there’s more to it than that.”

“Oh, God!” Julie said, her eyes widening. “I forgot about that! I said I’d remember and make you finish
it. What’s that got to do with
anything?”

“Well, here’s what I think,” Sarah said, turning to sit
sideways on the couch, facing Julie. “I think it’s the wrong question. I think the real question is, what’s the difference between ‘what’ we
are and ‘who’ we are?”

“Intriguing,” Julie noted with a nod. “Please, go on,” she prompted.

“’What’ I am is nature. I’m a woman. I’m a brunette. I’m
gay. ‘Who’ I am, as in, someone
who is kind of freakishly concerned about saving money; that’s nurture. That’s a product of my upbringing,”
Sarah said.

“So … your parents were penny pinchers?” Julie asked.

“No,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “They’re the two most impractical pair
you’ll ever meet. I love them to
death, but to this day they spend money like they’ve got a money tree growing
in the back yard.”

“I can’t quite picture you growing up like that,” Julie said
slowly. “And the nurture argument
would kind of imply you’d be like them.”

“I disagree,” Sarah said. “The way that I am is a choice that I made, because of my
parents. I remember one time, we
got a brand new television set. It
was one of those where it had a little window in the corner where you could
watch two channels at the same time. I think I was twelve, or something, and … they missed paying the rent
that month and we were almost evicted. And I remember thinking that, man, buying that television was really
dumb. For all I know they charged
it, and they wouldn’t have had the rent money that month anyway, but … I think
rejecting your upbringing makes you just as much a product of your upbringing
as embracing it. Your upbringing
is still what defines you, and makes you ‘who’ you are.”

“Wow,” Julie said. “I don’t think I would have guessed that in a million years. I think I figured your parents were
kind of … well, like you, only older,” she said with a shrug. “Or, y’know, Republicans or something.”

“Actually, he is, but Mom votes Democrat so they cancel each
other out,” Julie said dismissively. “So … where does your opportunity cost thing come in?”

“It’s … I think that it’s just how I think of my parent’s
choices. They’re both dreamers,
and they’ve changed jobs a million times apiece, and they’ve always scraped by
while they chased that one big break.”

“So what do they do?” Julie asked, confused.

“A little of everything,” Sarah said. “They think something’s going to be
big, and they go for it. One thing
I’ll say for them is, they’re both really hard workers. They set up a dot com in the garage
while I was in high school.”

“Really? What
for?” Julie said.

“I have no idea,” Sarah said, shaking her head a
little. “Apparently that worked
out for awhile, though. It was …
we’d have money, and then we wouldn’t, and then we’d have it, and we
wouldn’t. It was just very …
uncertain. By the time they were
doing their dot com thing, or whatever, I’d figured out that if I had a job and
money of my own, I wouldn’t have to rely on them for anything.”

“And you started saving,” Julie said. “And then you joined the Army so you
could save more and go to college.”

“Yes, exactly. So … it’s like, knowing exactly how much money I have, and what I’m
spending it on, and really being … safe and steady with my finances is …” Sarah
said, then trailed off, thinking about how to explain.

“I think maybe I did,” Sarah said slowly, looking down and
picking at the fabric of her pants. “I mean … I actually like accounting. And this isn’t the best or biggest house in the world – I’ve
been planning on doing some fixing up once I’ve saved up the cash, because
interest is evil,” she said, shooting Julie an amused look. “But, yeah, sometimes I wonder what I
would’ve wanted to do if I hadn’t been so focused on saving for a rainy day. Ah, well,” Sarah said, shaking her
head. “I only think that
sometimes. Generally, I’m pretty
happy with everything, and it’s not like I’m going to be changing anytime
soon.”

“Well, I think you’re doing great,” Julie said. “I think you’re twenty-eight and a
homeowner, and that’s pretty freaking unheard of. And I think you’ve shown that when you set your priorities,
and you outline a goal, you get it done, and that’s a pretty good thing to know
about yourself.”

“Minor detail,” Julie said, waving a hand. “I’ve been wanting to watch ‘Mary
Poppins’, and I believe that is on the list,” she said, referring to the list
of all the movies that Sarah hadn’t seen.

“Well, how can I say no to that?” Sarah wondered aloud. “So … is ‘Mary Poppins’ the one with
the chick with the bag?”

“Okay, first off, don’t call her a ‘chick’,” Julie said,
making quote fingers in the air.

“You call the both of us ‘chicks’ all the time,” Sarah said,
also making the quote fingers in the air, though hers somehow managed to be
more sarcastic before heading to the kitchen and getting the ice cream out as
Julie started rummaging around for her copy of ‘Mary Poppins’.

“We’re not British,” Julie said, as if that explained
everything. “That ‘chick’, as you
oh-so-wrongly called her, is Julie Andrews, and I was named after her. And just for that, we’re watching ‘The
Sound of Music’ next. Second –
that bag is the coolest thing ever, and I really, really want one.”

“It’s not just an ugly handbag,” Julie said. “She could pull whatever she wanted out
of there, including the measuring tape that proved she was practically perfect
in every way,” she said, finishing the setup.

“A what that did what?” Sarah asked, handing over Julie’s
bowl as Julie sat down.

“I want a measuring tape that says I’m practically perfect
in every way,” Julie mumbled around her first mouthful of ice cream. “Cold! Cold!” Julie said, waving her hand in front of her open
mouth, like that would help.

Sarah just laughed and started the movie.

***

Julie smiled a little, starting to fall back asleep, when
something nagging at her in the back of her mind jerked her awake.

Her eyes flew open.

“Wha’” she mumbled, sitting up gingerly. The couch wasn’t necessarily the best,
comfiest place to sleep, and …

“Shit,” she said. “Hey, Sarah,” she whispered, clambering up and around so she was
kneeling on the couch and facing Sarah. “Come on, honey, that’s really going to hurt in the morning,” she said.

While she’d considered leaving Sarah like that so she could
laugh at her drool and rub the crick out of her neck for her, that was just a
little bit meaner that it was funny, and Julie was kicking herself for almost
letting Sarah stay like that all night.

“Were you going to let me drool all over myself and get a
crick in my neck so you could have your way with me?” Sarah asked, laughing a
little, hugging Julie close. “Again?”

“That first time was an accident!” Julie’s muffled protest
came form Sarah’s shoulder-region.

“The part where I got a crick in my neck, or the part where
you buried your –“ Sara said, only to find Julie’s hand clamped over her mouth.

“Shush,” Julie said, looking into Sarah’s twinkling eyes and
forgetting what she was going to say. Julie moved her hand, and then leaned in, brushing her lips against
Sarah’s softly, sighing a little.

Sarah smiled against Julie’s lips, opening her mouth a
little and accepting Julie’s sigh. Just the tips of their tongues brushed together, as they traded teasing
open-mouthed kisses. Even after
the months they’d been together, Sarah couldn’t help the bit of wonder inside
of her, that this was real, and it was happening, and that actually kissing
Julie was better than she’d imagined.

“Mm,” Julie hummed, taking Sarah’s lower lip into her mouth
and sucking on it gently.

Much, much better.

Sarah made a noise that was half-whimper and half-gasp, her
hands finding Julie’s hips and tugging, silently urging Julie into a position
where she was sitting on Sarah’s lap, straddling her legs.

“Julie complied, sitting up on her knees a little, so the
taller Sarah had to tilt her head back to look at her. Julie brushed Sarah’s check with the
tips of her fingers, leaning in and claiming Sarah’s lower lip again, taking
possession of it with soft nips and firms strokes of her tongue.

Sarah groaned. She loved what Julie was doing. She really, really loved what Julie was doing, and Julie damn well knew
it.

“Tomorrow’s Thursday,” Sarah said, her hands gripping
Julie’s hips as Julie started a slow move along her jaw line towards her
ear. She could hear Julie’s
breathing, and the little hitches in it that meant Julie was just as turned on
as she was. Julie traced the edge
of her ear with her tongue, one hand braced on the back of the couch for
balance, and the other sliding down from Sarah’s collarbone, over her breasts
with their rapidly hardening nipples, and down to the waistband of her jeans
and back up. “We’re both working
in the morning,” Sara said, though her protest was in no way an indication that
Sarah wanted to stop, which Julie could tell by the way Sarah tugged her down
and pulled their bodies and their lips together.

And it was Julie’s turn to gasp as Sarah ached up into her.

“Off,” Sarah said, pushing Julie’s t-shirt upward, her hands
sliding along soft skin. Julie
helped, tugging her t-shirt off in one smooth motion as Sarah started pulling
off her own sweatshirt.

“I am completely wet already,” Julie said, her voice breathy
as she unbuckled Sarah’s belt. “How the hell do you do that?” she wondered out loud.

“You have a thing for nerds?” Sarah hazarded a guess,
finally free from the sweatshirt she had thrown … somewhere, her eyes riveted
to the spot where Julie was pulling her belt off of her, very slowly, loop by
loop.

“Or maybe it’s because I know you’re already wet. You are wet, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sarah breathed, her belt finally gone. She pulled Julie close and kissed her
slowly, their breasts pressed together. Julie reached between their bodies, undoing the button of Sarah’s jeans
and lowering the zipper. She tried
to stand, but Sarah held on for a moment, getting another brush of their lips
in before letting Julie go.

Finally able to stand, Julie started to kneel when Sarah
stopped her again. “Unh-unh,”
Sarah murmured, shaking her head and maneuvering her legs open so that Julie
was standing between them. She
scooted forward, wrapping her arms around Julie’s hips, her face pressed
against Julie between her belly and her breasts.

“Oh,” Julie gasped softly, as Sarah started kissing her
gently, nuzzling her breasts and sliding her lips across soft skin. Julie’s hands found Sarah’s shoulders
as Sarah started licking her left nipple slowly. Julie made an incoherent noise when Sarah took her hard
nipple into her mouth, while pushing her sweatpants and underwear down her
legs.

“What?” Julie asked when Sarah mumbled something into her
chest.

“I said ‘elastic rocks’,” Sarah explained with a grin,
pulling back from Julie’s breasts and running a teasing finger along the
wetness between Julie’s legs. “You are wet,” Sarah noted.

“And I’m not sure I can stand up anymore,” Julie said, her
grip on Sarah’s shoulders tightening.

“C’mere,” Sarah murmured, pulling Julie to her, so she was
straddling her legs again, one arm wrapped around her waist, and the other
still between her legs stroking her and teasing her.

“Don’t tease … please don’t tease,” Julie said, her voice
rough and desperate as she moved against Sarah’s hands, trying to get those
fingers where she needed them.

“Shhh,” Sarah soothed, kissing Julie’s shoulder, her fingers
sliding in Julie’s wetness, and gathering it up before going to her clit with
firm strokes.

“Yes,” Julie practically hissed, her head falling forward
against Sarah’s shoulder, and her arms wrapping around her neck.

“I love you,” Sarah whispered into Julie’s neck, continuing
to touch her where she so badly needed to be touched.

“Love you,” Julie gasped out. “Don’t stop.”

Sarah had no intention of stopping. Julie was moving against her, and there
was just the slight hint of saltiness on her lips from the light sheen of sweat
on Julie’s skin, and Julie was making those fantastic little noises that meant
she was getting very, very close.

Julie’s movements sped up, and became a little jerky and uneven,
like the hot breaths Sarah could feel against her shoulder. Her fingers kept slipping, and Julie
whimpered a little and bit down on her shoulder.

Sliding her hand forward, Sarah moved her hand forward,
sliding two fingers deep into Julie’s center and lifting up, the heel of her
hand pressing firmly against Julie’s clit.

“Oh, God,” Julie gasped, halting her movements and just
pressing downward, taking Sarah as far into as she could, moaning out loud in a
way that actually made Sarah’s clit twitch.

Sarah started moving her hand again, her other arm tightening
around Julie’s waist, and Julie moved, too, grasping at Sarah’s shoulders with
strong hands.

“That’s it,” Sarah encouraged, murmuring into Julie’s neck
as Julie’s movement sped up again. “That’s right,” Sarah sighed, feeling Julie’s fingernails digging into
her neck and shoulders as Julie lost herself in the sensations that Sarah was
providing.

“I’m … I’m …” Julie said, her words interrupted by
involuntary gulps of air she was helpless to stop. Sarah was perfect, and everything, and touching her, and
inside her, and all around her, and just what she needed, and she was going to
…

“Oh … God …” Julie ground out, her orgasm pulling the words
from her lungs as Sarah was pulling the orgasm from deeper within her. She moaned and rode it out, the
intensity of the pleasure rocking through her robbing her of breath and speech
and even thought until it slowly ebbed and flowed away, leaving her limp and
breathing heavily in Sarah’s arms.

Julie’s head came to rest against Sarah’s shoulder, and she
felt Sarah kiss her temple, and her neck and her cheek as her breathing slowed
and evened out.

“You okay?” Sarah whispered.

“Uh-huh,” Julie confirmed, a slow smile growing on her face.

Carefully, Sarah slid her fingers out of Julie, still
kissing her with soft, soothing kisses, anywhere she could reach.

“We’ll wait a minute, then go upstairs and get some sleep,
okay?” Sarah said softly.

Sarah stretched and smiled, feeling ridiculously good for
someone who had gotten – she checked the clock – about four hours of sleep.

Julie was next to her, smiling blissfully in her sleep, and
Sarah couldn’t help the internal swagger her thoughts took knowing that she had
put that smile there.

Really, she hadn’t ever thought she’d have the opportunity
to. She’d thought that Julie
wouldn’t ever be interested in her.

Not that Sarah had noticed that she was interested in Julie
until a clue hit her upside the head in the form of Julie’s law-school
classmate, Lena.

Lena had been nice, and attractive, and they’d had a very
good time for awhile, but after several months, Sarah had noticed that she’d
started to compare Lena to Julie. Lena didn’t get this joke that Julie would have gotten. Lena was a little too tall, not like
Julie. Lena didn’t ask her
questions if she wanted to know something, but expected Sarah to guess that she
was supposed to talk, while Julie always asked what she wanted to know.

And once Sarah had identified that thoroughly appalling
pattern, she’d broken up with Lena, because it was not even remotely fair to be
dating someone when she’d gone and fallen in love with someone else.

Sarah had, in some respects, hoped that her thing for Julie
would just go away as unobtrusively as it had shown up, and she had never
seriously entertained the idea that they would actually get together.

Or, if she had, in her deepest, most secret places, dreamed
of it once or twice, there was always some overly dramatic declaration on
Sarah’s part, or on Julie’s part, or something melodramatic happened, like a
car accident, or …

Sarah chuckled quietly, looking at Julie with a soft smile
on her face.

When they’d finally gotten together, it had been completely
anti-climactic.

***

“I asked you out, so I am paying,” Julie said emphatically,
snatching the check off the table as Sarah reached for it. “If you want to pay, then you can ask
me out.”

“But we always split the check,” Sarah said, her eyebrows
drawn together as she drew her hand away slowly.

She tuned out while Julie took care of the check, thinking
about how things had started off normally enough after work that evening. She’d gotten home, kicked off her
heels, dropped her purse on the desk, and sorted the mail in the kitchen.

But Julie had been acting … weird. First she had asked Sarah if she would like to have dinner,
and Sarah was kind of hungry, so she’d said yes. Then Julie had put on a cute little evening dress, which she
looked fantastic in, and said that she wanted to go someplace nice. And then Sarah had to go change so it looked like they were actually going to the same
place.

It was almost like they were on a …

“Wait a minute,” Sarah said slowly and quietly as they stood
up to go. “Is this a date?” she
whispered, bending down a little so Julie could hear her.

“It was until just now,” Julie said with a scowl.

“Oh, no,” Sarah said, shaking her head and dancing a few
steps ahead of Julie on their way through the restaurant. She waited at the door. “Since we’re on a date, and you paid,
you get the door, too,” she said in a sing-song voice.

“Thank you,” Sarah said with a smile, walking out into the
cool night air, a little spring in her step she just couldn’t stop.

“If you’re done making fun of me,” Julie muttered angrily,
starting to get upset at Sarah’s behavior and yanking her purse open to start a
hunt for her keys.

“But I’m not making fun of you,” Sarah said seriously,
taking one of Julie’s hands off of her poor purse and holding it in her
own. “I’m not,” she said, waiting
for Julie to look at her. “This is
the best date I didn’t know I was on, ever,” she said, punctuating her
declaration with a soft kiss. “And
I’d really like to do it again, sometime.”

“Really?” Julie asked.

“Really,” Sarah said.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Julie asked, and Sarah
chuckled.

Julie always asked when she wanted to know something.

“I, umm … can we talk about this at home?” Sarah said,
glancing around the parking lot, which wasn’t exactly private.

“Oh, yeah … okay,” Julie said with a little chuckle, smiling
when Sarah kept hold of her hand all the way to the car.

The drive home was silent, but their hands found each other,
and it was the comfortable silence of people who had spent a lot of time
together and didn’t feel the need to break it.

“Wait,” Julie said when Sarah started to open the front
door.

“Hmm?” Sarah asked, a questioning look on her face.

“I had a really good time tonight,” Julie said, an uncertain
smile on her face.

“I’d really like that,” Sarah said, and Julie stepped into
her arms, and they were holding each other.

Sarah dipped her head downward, her cheek sliding along
Julie’s as Julie’s head lifted up, their lips finding each other and brushing
together.

“Perfect,” Julie said softly when they both drew away.

“Yeah,” Sarah agreed.

“Okay, we can go in now,” Julie said.

They looked at each other, and started laughing, twin grins
gracing their features as Sarah opened the door and they went into the living
room. Julie waited for Sarah to
sit down on the couch, and then she sprawled out, her head resting against
Sarah’s leg, treating Sarah to an impish grin before settling in.

“So I was going to ask why you didn’t say anything,” Julie
said. “But I think I know.”

“What’s your theory?” Sarah asked, idly playing with Julie’s
hair.

“I think you were scared it would ruin our friendship,”
Julie said. “Like I was.”

“You too, huh?” Sarah asked softly. “What changed your mind?”

“Opportunity cost,” Julie said with a grin. “I started thinking about it in those
terms, and I thought … which would I regret losing out on more: being your
friend, or being your lover?”

“And you decided being my friend wasn’t as important?” Sarah
asked softly, feeling a little hurt by that decision.

“No,” Julie said, shaking her head where it rested against
Sarah’s knee. “I decided that it
was the same decision you and your parents were making,” Julie said, looking up
at Sarah. “It was security versus
dreams. Our friendship is safe,
and secure, and stable, and … it’s all those things. The idea of being something more to you … that’s been a
dream of mine for awhile.”

“And?” Sarah asked.

Julie took Sarah’s hand and brought to her lips, kissing
Sarah’s fingertips gently. “And I
love you. And opportunity cost can
kiss my ass, because I’m going to have it all,” Julie declared, lifting her
chin stubbornly. “And I mean that
in a rest-of-my-life kind of way.”

“I think I’m ready to dream a little,” Sarah said with a
sweet smile. “As long as I get to
dream with you.”

“Glad we got that settled,” Julie said, sitting up a little
as Sarah bent down their lips drawing closer.

“And I love you, too,” Sarah murmured.

Julie smiled, her eyes drifting closed as their lips almost
touched.

“And we should set up joint bank accounts,” Sarah said softly.

Julie’s eyes popped open.

“And work up a household budget,” Sarah went on, her gaze
growing distant as her mind started going over all the paperwork that merging
two lives involved. “I need to add
you to my benefits, and the house,” she said, her lips pursing and her eyebrows
drawing together.

“Sarah?” Julie said.

“Yes?” Sarah said, looking at Julie who was snickering
uncontrollably.

“You can play with Excel or you can play with me,” Julie
said sternly.

“Oh, right,” Sarah said, kissing Julie soundly.

“Good choice,” Julie said.

***

“Mmm … what are you chuckling about?” Julie asked, her eyes
opening as she looked at Sarah who was looking back at her.

“I’m just wondering why you didn’t kill me the night of our
first date,” Sarah said, shaking her head.

“The part where you didn’t figure out it was a date, or the
part where I had to wrestle amortization schedules out of your hands to get you
to kiss me?” Julie asked.

“You’re exaggerating,” Sarah said with a pout.

“Or the part where, then and now, you had no idea it was
Valentine’s Day?” Julie asked.

“That was Valentine’s Day?” Sarah asked, her jaw dropping
and her eyes widening with distress. “But I didn’t get you anything!”

“Yes, you did,” Julie said, her eyes dancing. “Knowing you as well as I do, the part
about the joint bank accounts just may be the most romantic thing anyone has
ever said to me. But that was your
free one. I expect something
awesome next year.”

“Okay,” Sarah agreed. “I’ll get you a measuring tape that says ‘practically perfect in every
way’ right at your height,” she said, holding her hand up to the top of Julie’s
head to illustrate.